The approach could ease the path to an agreement, by allowing Congress to reach the outlines of an agreement on tax revenues and spending cuts this year, while postponing the difficult details of a tax overhaul until next year, and handing the issue back to the congressional tax-writing committees.

The May 26, 2011, event linked Credit Suisse executives with top Capitol Hill aides, including two Republicans from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and one from the Senate's tax-writing committee, which has jurisdiction over health-care policy.

Democratic aides say they are open to the idea of raising taxes by $600 billion to $800 billion, with some of those tax increases laid out explicitly and the remaining $500 billion to be determined later by Congress's tax-writing committees.

The active hearing schedules in the two tax-writing committees suggest that Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) aren't yielding all tax issues to the supercommittee this fall, though both are among its ranks, Mr. Schwarz noted.

Lobbyists are already chatting up would-be Republican committee chairs, report Eric Lipton and David Herszenhorn: Mr. Camp is slated to take over the powerful, tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee if Republicans win the majority next week, transforming this low-key conservative Republican almost overnight into one of the most powerful men in town ...